Shadows of the Past (SEAL Brotherhood: Shadow Team #1)

Chapter Eleven

H e knew it was a dangerous and false illusion that this lazy afternoon would last forever. He’d planned on getting his fill of what he’d missed, and armed and fully charged up, he would be able to think his way out of the mess that had been created.

He tried to put it out of his mind each time he woke up.

In many ways, they were better together, physically, than they ever had been. The distance and time spent away had perhaps built in both of them the appreciation and fondness for what their needs were. Unashamed and relentless, the tussle of the sheets turned to just enough sleep to get ready to do it all over again. They abandoned whatever their lives were up to that day, put everything on pause to enjoy the love play, the wonder and satisfaction of being fully satisfied, giving everything they had.

It was a beautiful thing.

But toward evening, he knew he couldn’t ignore the questions he had. The danger was creeping in while they were mindlessly lost in the flesh.

He stood before the balcony window as night fell, naked, knuckles pressed against the plaster windowsill. He viewed the twinkling lights on the boats below in the harbor, the sounds of the little bars on the beach, music playing somewhere, and the stars above holding like a mirror projecting from the earth to the heavens.

The sounds of normal life.

Somewhere out there was a guy, because there was always one guy . It always came down to one who, you take him out, and the problem is solved. Who was that guy? Where was the peg that the whole building would fall if he removed it?

First was to define the enemy. Then the plan of attack could be made. To rescue them now, without knowing who to trust and who was out there looking to eliminate the whole family, he’d just make a bloody mess. The bodies would continue to stack up. The deniability, the covering something up, who was bought and paid for and who was the unlikely hero, it was like one of those passion plays he’d seen once in Indonesia with the shadow puppets. There was always the good guy, the villain, the heroine, the innocent who got sacrificed, the bringer of war, and the champion for peace. All different sides of the character of men. Even the bad guys had a pecking order. And they usually would not cross one man.

Who was he?

She came up behind him, molding her body to warm his, stroking down his frontside. Her warm caresses were kind, gave him energy, pride. His heart swelled under this simple affection he’d been missing these past years.

“What’s wrong, Dimitri?”

“Just can’t sleep. I’d like to. But…” He turned and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m not sure I can just spend the whole evening doing this, because I’m anxious we’re losing precious time.”

“But you said—”

“Yes, and I meant it, too.” He kissed her. Kissed her eyes and her lips then her neck tenderly. “The more I love you, the more I don’t want to lose you. I focused so much on getting here and finding you. Now I don’t want it to end. But if we don’t make a strategy and stick to it, smartly, none of us will survive.”

She stood in front of him, also watching the lights.

“Am I not enough?” she whispered.

“Sweetheart, nothing could be further from the truth. You’re everything I want and would ever need.” He felt her breasts, let his forefinger trace down the back of her spine. His palms rubbed over her butt cheeks. Her flawless body was more exciting to him now than it ever had been, and she was nearing forty. He placed his palm on her belly.

“I want to put a child there, Moira. How can we do that if the world is going to fall apart for us? I have to build the house where we’ll be safe forever. We can’t ignore what’s so.”

What are you going to do? It is what it is.

They stood framed by the low lights of the village below, the heat rising between them once again. Her eyes looked up at him, worry lines marring her forehead.

“You’re scaring me, Dimitri.”

“Part of my training, sweetheart. It’s why you called me. I can’t help it.”

“Then we should talk. How can I help?”

She slipped away from him and put on a silk robe but left it open down her frontside. She brought two bottled waters from the kitchen, and they drank. He finished his. She was delicately sipping hers, watching the activity below. Droplets fell onto her chest as she stared at him with honest eyes, challenging his demons.

She was well aware of her effect on him.

He sat on the bed and pulled her on top of his lap. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her hot, swollen sex rubbed against his member, that gentle tease to take him to the next level. He focused on how their bodies moved as she rose to her knees, placed him between her thighs, and sat down until he was fully seated deep inside.

The glorious connection between them made his skin tingle all over. The furnace of his soul roared to life.

He pushed the robe off her shoulders, and she arched backward, her frontside creating a beautiful strong bow. He leaned over her, held her back with his arms, and kissed her breasts. Then his lips swept down between them as she undulated, clutching his deepness, her naked need on full display.

“Moira, are you bewitching me?” he whispered to her belly button.

She slowly rose, holding her hair on top of her head, pressing her breast into his mouth. “God, Dimitri, I hope so. I need more of this. Then we’ll talk.”

It was a bargain he could live with.

He was starving in the morning. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he’d eaten. She called a bakery café, and a few minutes later, a young boy delivered two lattes, some brioche, and two egg and croissant sandwiches. They sat at the tiny kitchen table to enjoy their meal.

She fed him, tearing off little pieces of brioche, holding the coffee cup to his lips, and kissing his lips in between.

He liked being tinkered with, teased, and kissed. Fed. Loved the feel of her hands on his thighs, on his shaft, places that had not had a woman’s touch for months.

They were supposed to talk, but she kept sitting there with that robe open down the front, her scent everywhere.

He put his chin on his hands, elbows on the table between them, studying her.

“You’re going to ask me if I’m ready,” she whispered.

“And you’re stalling.”

“Yes, I am.”

“It won’t work, Moira,” he said, slipping her long hair behind one ear.

“Don’t test me.”

“I would never do that. You may not be aware, but I think you’re stronger than I am. But I have some questions that need answering.”

She pouted, inhaled, and then forced out a big sigh. “Okay, go ahead and ask.”

“Not until you smile. Just think of it, if you answer all my questions, maybe we can do something else soon.”

“That’s not fair. But go ahead and ask.”

She sipped her coffee and waited for him.

“Who is it that is doing this to your family? There’s always one core, one nexus, that one person who holds all the evil-doing together, the kingpin, the one with the most power, the wizard of evil. The one who causes all the drama and blows smoke across the solutions, obscures their evil actions with drama elsewhere in a slight of hand, like an evil sorcerer. He makes it so we focus more on the danger and drama than himself. Do you know what I mean?”

She nodded her head solemnly.

“Who would that be? It’s always just one. Can you give me that one person, one name?”

“Enrico Francone.”

“The minister of defense. It would have to be the minister of defense. Christ!”

He looked aside. Well, he’d asked for it, and she delivered the name.

“How the Hell did you guys get mixed up with him? You actually thought you could do battle with him ?”

“He was my father’s partner at one time. My father made a poor choice.”

“I’d even call it stupid, Moira.”

“Well, yes. It was, but at the time none of us knew what we know now. He’s the man who took away most his vineyards, all the little wineries he started. He’s the one Nathan was trying to negotiate with to obtain our release.”

“Well, there’s another fool. He thought he’d worm his way into your dad’s good graces that way? But I guess the larger question is, why wouldn’t Francone agree to the deal. What was in it he didn’t like?”

“My father knows too much.”

“About what?”

“About what he exports, imports. The wine business gives him access to shipping. He ships not only wine, but drugs as well. He also deals in arms. He is able to buy American weapons from contractors in the U.S. and sell them overseas, exchanges them with the Taliban and other groups for the drugs he gets. He sells the drugs for the American market. Supposedly boutique drugs, not garbage from China or Mexico. People will pay a high price for good drugs.”

“You mean drugs they can supposedly trust?”

“Exactly.”

“But that’s folly. Someone somewhere down the line decides to cut it, make their own concoction, and then you have the dangerous additives, and it’s no longer safe. There is no such thing as a safe drug.”

“Yes. I know that. But it’s his brand. My father discovered what he was doing by accident, and Francone found out.”

“It has to be more than that. He could find your father and get rid of him quickly. Why tie up the whole family too?”

“He’s a cousin of my mother—distant cousin, but blood is strong here. The family on Capri is strong. There’s a lid on them, which is a mafia term for a ‘hands off’ warning. Harming my father would begin a war. Francone doesn’t want that. It would elevate the skirmish to international headlines. He does everything under the cover of official darkness.”

That was a choice couple of words she spewed out. It aptly described the problem with overreaching governments lining their own pockets, and he wasn’t na?ve to think the U.S. didn’t have their fair share of them as well.

Official darkness. What are you going to do? It is what it is.

Had the whole world gone crazy? Everyone playing the short game, all the innocents being sacrificed for a house built on the sand. No honor, no duty to a higher calling. It was evil’s nemesis, after all. It was devoid of being worthy. All the bad guys could do was be scarier than the next one in line. And the lines were longer the more money they made, greed infecting everything in their midst. Evil people claimed territory that was not theirs to claim, like vampires feeding off the souls of the good people of the world who just wanted to live in peace and freedom.

“So if you move off the island, you are no longer protected?”

“No, it’s supposed to apply anywhere.”

Then he realized one missing piece of the puzzle. “Your family is mafia as well?”

She looked at the empty basket on the table. Slowly, she nodded her head. “They helped put us up. We owe them our lives. It was the admission for our freedom.”

“But that’s not freedom, Moira. It’s temporary safety. Freedom means being unrestricted by those handcuffs, not having to hide, not having to seek protection. It’s how all the evil starts, how men and women compromise themselves, claiming it’s not as bad as it could be. Living a life of servitude isn’t being free. Anyone who thinks so is delusional.”

She was affected by his words, wiping the tears from her cheeks. No wonder she didn’t want to tell him all this. As operations went, this was perhaps the most dangerous he’d ever encountered. And they’d just stumbled into it, caught in the trap. It’s how foreign fighters would switch sides depending on what tribe would protect their families back home. It had nothing to do with loyalty to a cause or even country. It was a protection racket. There were no real freedom fighters, only fighters desperate to protect what little they had.

And it certainly wasn’t a viable solution to the overall problem; bullies of the world. He shook his head. “I can’t believe how entwined you and your family have become.”

“You used to talk about the frog in the pot of water not being able to jump out until it’s too late.”

Evil exists when good men and women do nothing.

It was part of their creed, that saying that all true warriors subscribed to. It had nothing to do with politics, nationality. Evil was pure evil. Always and forever. And it required the innocents to feed off of from a place of fear. It was so unfair, and Dimitri’s blood began to boil.

He’d asked the question and got the answer. Now what was he supposed to do? She was looking to him like he was the solution, and he was so far out of his league. He had come all the way over here certain he could help, and now he wasn’t so sure. Was his fate to die in her arms as she lay dying too?

No. That was not acceptable. If he had to die, he’d die fighting until he could not go further. He’d take as many bad guys with him as possible, send them back to the evil source from which they came. His Brotherhood of warriors demanded his best, regardless of the odds. It’s what was required.

Assess the risks. Practice and strategize. Plan for A, B, and C outcomes, and then when E or F outcomes show up, improvise.

That’s the only way it worked. Spending two seconds on the fear of it not working was a complete, dumbass waste of time.

She studied his face, waiting for his answer, waiting for him to solve her problem or to come up with a solution. So he’d do that. He was up for that. But he was also going to tell her the truth. The odds were long. It was important for her to pay attention. In truth, their inattention had caused this.

He smiled and kissed her, tasted the sweetness of her lips, the remnants of the brioche’s sugar coating in the corners of her mouth. Her warm breath against his face made his heart race. She was so worth protecting. This was what he did.

He sat back, licking his lips with another smile. She began to slip off that damned robe.

“Moira, no. Not now. Not that I don’t want to just do that for days and days to come. We won’t get there if we don’t focus on something other than fucking. I know it’s blunt. But let’s go on a diet here, try to give that stuff up for a while, because, honestly, you are so damned distracting, I can’t think. You didn’t bring me over here to fuck your brains out, sweetheart, which I’m only too happy to do. You have asked me to go on a sacred mission to help save your family, right? That’s the long game. We’ll have time for play later.”

He leaned in one more time and kissed her slowly.

“I promise.”

She slipped the robe back over her shoulder. It was sweet what she said next. “I’ll try.”

At least, it was honest. It was going to take everything he had to do the same. Did no use wishing it was otherwise.

He put his hands together on the table, touching his fingertips to each other, the church and steeple thing.

“What if we bring him down? Wouldn’t your family benefit from that?”

“Not if there’s a war.”

“But what if the U.S. government intervened, caught him on corruption, and prosecuted him?”

“Yes, but our government is riddled with dishonest people, Dimitri. You know this to be true. They tried to frame Nathan for the botched raid. I think he was convinced we’d been killed by the personal special force Francone has. It was to be a joint exercise with the SEAL Team. The Italians went in first and destroyed everything during the raid, and he made Nathan take the blame for it. It was a lesson to him not to interfere with their business. He wanted to be rid of them.”

“So Francone partnered with Goldberg and then changed his mind?”

“I think Nathan introduced him to the military contractors. Then he didn’t need him any longer. This was a way to get him out. But they aren’t done with Nathan. They’ve got a lot of stuff on him. He’s probably being more useful as a senator. They will bleed him dry until there’s nothing left.”

“Well, it isn’t the best solution, but it’s a simple one. With your family connections, couldn’t your father just live his remaining days here? I could understand if you and your siblings wanted to leave, but wouldn’t it be easier if he and your mother stayed with family here where they are safe?”

He knew better than to think for even a second there was any easy solution.

“Like every family, there are many factions. Some don’t want to be protecting us any longer. They want to make peace with Francone. Even seek his protection.”

“But that means they cease to be a family if they have to rely on his protection? Don’t they see that?”

“Yes, but some have asked the head of the family to exchange us for that peace. My father thinks it’s only a matter of time before they cave. The younger generation is willing to give up something to have peace, to be allowed to handle their business without interference.”

“That’s like asking the government to help you. Pure folly. That’s not freedom. That’s paying for protection again.”

“I won’t be able to change their minds, and you won’t either, Dimitri. My dad wants to come home to his country. My mother could stay here, but she wants all of us to return to the U.S., to be a real family again, like it used to be.”

“So what do you think you need?”

“We need safe passage to the U.S. We need to be able to get to Naples or some port city and fly home. We have both families trying to stop that from happening.”

“ Both families? Your family won’t let you leave?”

“We are caught in the middle. We are insurance to one and a nuisance to the other. Do you see why I didn’t want to get you involved, never told you about my people? I was ashamed. I didn’t want to ruin your career.”

“This is what you tried to do on your own?”

“Yes. I had a group from San Diego who were helping me. That’s when I met you again, at the bonfire.”

“Who? SEALs?”

“No. Immigration attorneys, people who specialize in criminal extradition. Probably do things outside the law, which again is why I didn’t want to involve you. I went over there to help them execute this plan, but it all fell through. My dad got wind of a raid, the one you heard about. We moved to another property my father had, and it was our caretaker who was ambushed and then burned in the fire. We fled to Capri under the family protection. And now we can’t leave.”

“Ideally, we hire a boat, a private vessel, we get you to Naples, and then we accompany you home. Is that it?”

“That’s the only viable plan. But every time I’ve tried to arrange it, someone finds out. I have to go completely outside my family or we get blocked.”

“What about the Embassy?”

“Not trustworthy. Nathan used to work there, with his team, as you know. We think they are on the side of Francone or being paid off.”

Dimitri knew that the ace up his sleeve was his proximity to the president. But if handled the wrong way, that would dry up. He also knew it was only to be used if it was the last card he could play.

“Do you trust Nathan?”

“Never again. He’s dirty, and they own him. I think he’s a mole for them.”

“Where does Jordan come in?”

“He has all my files. He has the proof. People don’t know about him.”

“He feels differently now. He suspects he’s being followed.”

“Then that’s one of Nathan’s men. They must have discovered him.”

Dimitri thought about the break-in at his place. This would explain that as well.

“So we need guys. Guys that are vetted by me, people I know, to be a security detail to fend off whatever, to get you home.”

“And I’ll do the rest. I’ll make sure the information I have in my files is released and given to the media. I want to bring them all down, Dimitri. If we fail to get our freedom, then I want to bring them all down.”

“Remind me later not to ever get you mad.”